Women’s IPL likely to have 5 teams, 20 league matches in 2 venues: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is speeding its process to host the first-ever season of the Women’s Indian Premier League (IPL) next year. The inaugural edition of the Women’s IPL is likely to be played amongst five teams, as indicated by a report published in Cricbuzz.
It further suggested that the tentative window for the first edition of Women’s IPL will be March 2023, that is, after the Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa and before the Men’s Indian Premier League (IPL).
Each of the five teams may choose to play five overseas players – 4 from ICC’s full member nations and one player can be picked from the associate countries. Notably, in Men’s IPL, only four overseas players are allowed to be named in the playing11.
“A maximum of four of the overseas players in the XI can be from the ICC Full Member nations, it’s being considered, whereas the remaining one can be from an Associate Nation,” said the report.
The decision of naming teams – either zone-wise or team-wise format – is yet to be done. The development is likely to proceed after the IPL office bearers meeting.
“Zone wise — North (Dharamsala/Jammu), South (Kochi/Vizag), Central (Indore/Nagpur/Raipur), East (Ranchi/Cuttack), North East (Guwahati) and West (Pune/Rajkot) — with matches held at non-IPL venues) and existing city-wise like with Men’s IPL (Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata – with matches held at IPL venues),” added the report.
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As far as the playing format is concerned, 20 league-stage matches will be held amongst the five teams. Each side may play the other twice in the league stage. After the end of the league stage, the team at the top of the points table will directly qualify for the finals, while the second and third-ranked sides will play out the eliminator. The winner of the eliminator will then play the final with the top-ranked team.
All the 20 league stage games are likely to be held in two venues in a city, just like the IPL 2022 was held in Maharashtra.
“With only 20 league games in consideration, as few as two venues will be involved per season for the WIPL. So the inaugural 2023 season could be played at two of the aforementioned venues, the 2024 season at the other two and 2025 at the remaining one plus one of the venues of the 2023 season,” concluded the report.
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